The Hunter (30 page)
Authors: Theresa Meyers
“I’d rather have her burn the Book than give it to you.”
“I can arrange that.” Dr. Morpheus pulled another lever on the panel before him, and the stinger started to lower in Colt’s direction.
“Stop!” Lilly shouted.
“Did you object?” Dr. Morpheus said with obvious delight.
“Of course!”
“Then what are we to do about it, my little daylily?”
“Let him go. Take the Book. Take me, but let him go.” It was really no risk. The pages in the pack she held were a mere forgery, a copy, and a hastily created one at that.
“NO!” roared Colt.
Lilly looked at him, tried beseeching him with her eyes, unable to tell him the Book she held was a fake. “If I go with him, you’ll at least be alive.”
“But he’ll only take you back to Rathe!”
Lilly forced herself not to tremble at the thought. “We always knew that was a possibility.”
Colt squirmed against the grasp of the mechanical scorpion. “No. Hell no. Don’t do this!”
“I’m sorry,” Morpheus interjected, “this is so entertaining. But I do have other pressing engagements. Miss Lilly, am I taking you and the Book, or am I killin’ this young man, then taking you and the Book?” To emphasize his point, he lowered the glass stinger a few more feet until it was poised, glistening a few inches above Colt’s chest.
“Let him go,” Lilly said simply. Colt stared at her hard. Didn’t she know she was goddamn ripping his heart out of his chest?
Dr. Morpheus’s smile turned pointed up at the edges in a grotesque semblance of delight. “There now. See, I knew you could be a reasonable girl.” He fingered the lever that controlled the claw holding Colt. Colt grunted as it tightened up another notch, making stars pop again in his vision. “Just remember, son,” Morpheus drew the
s
out so it hissed, “you come after me and I’ll kill her first, slowly, so you can watch.
Then
you. Do we have an understanding?”
s
out so it hissed, “you come after me and I’ll kill her first, slowly, so you can watch.
Then
you. Do we have an understanding?”
Colt couldn’t draw in enough air to speak, so he nodded.
“Good.” The scorpion rider pushed the brass lever down with his elegantly gloved hand.
With a hiss of steam, the pistons on the claw opened the metal pincers, letting Colt fall twenty feet to the ground in a heap. He groaned.
His vision was blurred and began to darken, but he turned to his side and watched the big metallic scorpion clank off toward the horizon and the open desert, Lilly still clutched in one enormous claw and the pack still clutched in her arms.
Lilly wriggled and struggled against the metal pincer holding her securely about the middle. “You got what you wanted, Morpheus. Let me out of this infernal contraption!”
“Tsk, tsk. Manners, Miss Lilly. We must mind our manners.”
“
Please
, will you let me out of this thing?”
Please
, will you let me out of this thing?”
Adder Morpheus twirled the long end of his mustache as he considered her request. Lord, how she loathed him, especially when he did that like some sanctimonious judge. He’d done that for as long as she could remember. He flicked a lever with his finger and the claw came up still farther until she was poised over the metal plate deck where he stood. He extended a gloved finger, paused for a moment, watching her wriggle, then pushed a button on the panel. Lilly was unceremoniously dropped onto her feet beside him. She stood, holding the pack in one hand, trying to brush the dirt and wrinkles from her skirts.
Adder yanked the pack from her, then grabbed hold of her wrist in a hard unyielding grip as he snapped a pair of brass-colored handcuffs on her and then himself, linking them together. “There, now. Just in case you got the notion to shimmer off somewhere else, you’ll know I’ll be right there with you.”
Lilly yanked against the cuff in annoyance, but knew he was right. She wasn’t going anywhere without him until he took off the special cuffs. “Are we planning on riding this thing all the way to Rathe?”
Adder chuckled. “That would be somethin’, wouldn’ it? But we’re goin’ to meet him in neutral territory. That way when I hand you and the Book over, I’ll be on my way a free man that much sooner.”
“You trust him to let you walk away?” Lilly asked, sliding him a sideways glance. She sighed with a slight bit of dramatic flair. “You must be losing your touch.”
“Don’t think you can out-con a con man, my dear. I’ve already got my arrangements with Rathe, same as you. He’ll abide by them, you’ll see.”
Lilly maintained a nonchalant expression, but inside she was fuming mad.
After several hours, the swaying motion mixed with the smell of hot metal and machine oil from the scorpion and the noxious sweet odor of pipe tobacco that clung to Morpheus made Lilly nauseous. She gripped the railing looking out at the dry stretch of desert before them. “How much farther?”
“Just over that ridge into Death Valley.”
Lilly sighed. Rathe was sadistic, cruel, and power-hungry, but not overly creative.
The wide salt flats spread in an endless, mind-numbing stretch of crisp white crust from one brown mountain range to the other. Not a plant, not a single living thing, drew breath out here. The mechanical scorpion never slowed, and took them up with crunching steps through the valley floor to where it narrowed, then spread out into miles of pale sand dunes. The undulating mounds of sand were sculpted by the wind into thousands of ripples without a single tree, bush, or blade of dried grass to hold the shifting sands back.
Dr. Morpheus pulled a large lever and pushed a pedal in the floor downward. With a hiss of steam the scorpion slowly descended, the portions of its articulated legs sliding one over the other as they collapsed into shorter stubs. With a rattling shake, the monster came to rest.
Dr. Morpheus pulled at the edge of his broad-brimmed black hat, making sure it was securely in place, then looked over his shoulder at her. “Are you ready, my dear?” He walked over to the edge of the scorpion’s massive head, and flipped a switch. Lilly watched in horrified fascination as a set of stairs made from open-worked lattice began to sprout and unfold from the machine’s cranium.
“You do like your toys, don’t you, Morpheus.”
He smiled, offering her a hand. “After you, Miss Lilly.”
Lilly would have preferred to slap him rather than take his hand, but they were still high above the ground and she didn’t want to fall. Instead of touching him, she grasped her skirts in one hand and the brass rail in the other, and slowly made her way unaided to the ground.
“I’m assuming you didn’t bring me all this way for nothing.”
“Patience, my daylily. I’d hardly be eager to see Rathe if I were you.”
“You do realize he’ll be furious you forced me to let Colt Jackson go.”
Dr. Morpheus eyed her speculatively. “But I have the Book.” He shook the pages in his hand, making them flutter in the light wind blowing over the dunes, whipping the sand into a stinging spray that scoured her cheeks.
“Yes, but you don’t have the Hunter.”
“He’s hardly of any use. Hunters are a penny a pound.”
“Even when they’re part of the Chosen?”
His eyes narrowed. “You purposely neglected to share that little tidbit with me, didn’t you, darlin’.”
She gave him a supercilious smile. “Always hold back something for yourself. Wasn’t that the first lesson you and Father taught me?”
A rumble, like a stampede of buffalo across the plains, grew louder, the earth beneath their feet beginning to tremble. Sand shifted beneath their feet as the largest dune before them shivered. “Oh, look, and just in time for you to explain it all to Rathe,” she said blithely.
A great chasm in the ground opened up before them, red and violent, spitting out steam, the sand spilling into the gap like an hourglass. And through it came Rathe in elegant topcoat and tails, great black overcoat and top hat, looking fit for a night at the opera, followed by several of his thralls. Two of them, flanking Rathe, were stone Scoria soldiers, great rock men with glowing coal-like eyes and dark open maws, spewing dust in little puffs from their joints as they moved with thunderous steps. Behind them were a chimera, who shook his great lion mane and his scaly snake of a tail, with eyes like Rathe’s, flicking its tongue and tasting the air, and a hellhound, big as a buffalo and dark as sin, its glowing red eyes and enormous white canines dripping shiny strings of deadly saliva made more visible by its dark coat.
Dr. Morpheus gave an elegant old-fashioned bow, one leg bent, bringing his head to the level of his knee. “My lord.” His voice was unctuous and tinged with fear.
“Good day, Dr. Morpheus. I see you have brought me my wayward demon, but have you the Book?”
Dr. Morpheus took the pages from beneath his arm and held it out to Rathe, his head bent in sycophantic supplication.
Rathe slipped it from Morpheus’s hands and flipped through the pages. His pale, waxy skin glowed faintly in the brilliant daylight. The vertical slits in the demon lord’s yellow eyes widened a fraction, his slash of a mouth creasing wider in his deathly pale face. Lilly waited one heartbeat, then two, and knew the exact instant when Rathe realized what he held was a fake.
The earth shook and the faux Book burst into orange-yellow flames in his hand. Dr. Morpheus jerked his head upward. “My lord! The Book!”
With demon speed Rathe kicked him in the jaw, sending him sprawling back into the dirt. Dr. Morpheus moaned, his eyes glazed with shock. Lilly froze, watching in horrified fascination as the tips of Rathe’s fingers extended into long black talons that glinted in the sunlight. The demon lord’s elegant black cloak swirled about him in a spin of darkness as he leaned down, putting his long, razor-sharp talon against Morpheus’s throat. The skin dimpled in and oozed a drop of scarlet blood where the doctor’s pulse beat hard and fast.
“The next time you displease me, Doctor, I shall slice you from ear to ear and drink your blood and eat your entrails like sausages while you watch, then make you grow them back so I can feast again the next day and the next. Are we clear?”
Rathe moved his hand from one side of Morpheus’s throat to the other in a slow slicing motion.
Dr. Morpheus stared, eyes wide with fear. It was the last thing he ever did. His head rolled off his shoulders and into the dirt.
Lilly stood rabbit still as Rathe’s gaze swiveled in her direction. “Lillith Marie Arliss. I want the real Book. Now.”
For a moment she considered materializing another forgery, then she took a look at the doctor’s sightless eyes staring at her and thought better of it. If Rathe had been able to detect her first forgery, he certainly could tell another.
But she wasn’t going to give in without a fight.
“You promised to give me my freedom if I brought you the Book.”
“Yes.”
“Will you still?”
“I grow weary of your childish games.” Within one heartbeat he was beside her, his talons digging into the flesh of her neck as he lifted her off the ground, his hand squeezing hard on her windpipe and cutting off her air.
“Give. Me. The. Book.”
She hesitated as stars and streaks began to cloud her vision.
“Time’s up, Lillith Marie Arliss.”
Using what little strength she had left, Lilly brought her hands together. The warmth expanded as she brought the Book back from Winn’s office and into her hands.
Rathe dropped her like a used rag in a heap on the sand dune. She coughed and wheezed, getting both sand and air in her lungs. She rolled over gingerly, massaging the painful dark bruises on her throat and struggling to her knees in the soft sand.
“Take her down below and pick up his head. I have plans for it,” Rathe ordered with a flick of his hand. Lilly tried to crawl away as a Scoria soldier and the hellhound bracketed her. The Scoria soldier snatched her up from the ground as if she were a child’s doll, crushing her to the granite wall of his chest, making it impossible to move while the shifter bound her wrists and feet with silver chain.
“But you promised to give me my freedom!”
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